Nordic Border Crossings Coastal Communities and Connected Cultures in Eighteenth-Century Norway, Scotland, and Canada
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Nordic Border Crossings Coastal Communities and Connected Cultures in Eighteenth-Century Norway, Scotland, and Canada SILKE REEPLOEG ABSTRACT: Coastal cultures form a complex area of research, offering new opportunities to investigate and understand the history of cultural encounters and transnational “regions of culture” across the Northern peripheries. This article investigates the connected cultures of coastal communities of Norway, Scotland, and Canada after 1700. A shared, diverse, but similarly sea-focused cultural landscape exists across the North that informs the way in which regional cultural identities are formed and maintained. Using new methodologies of cultural transfer such as entangled histories or histoire croisée, this article pays particular attention to the creation of transient cross-cultural networks and regions stimulated by trade and related contacts across the North Sea and the North Atlantic. RÉSUMÉ : Les cultures côtières forment un domaine de recherche complexe, offrant de nouvelles opportunités d’enquêter sur et de comprendre l’histoire des rencontres culturelles et des « régions de culture » transnationales à travers les périphéries du Nord. Cet article examine les cultures interconnectées des communautés côtières de la Norvège, de l’Écosse et du Canada après 1700. Un paysage culturel partagé, diversifié, mais, de façon commune, axé sur la mer, existe à travers le Nord, renseignant sur la façon dont les identités culturelles régionales sont formées et maintenues. Par l’utilisation de nouvelles méthodologies de transfert culturel telles que les histoires croisées ou entangled histories, cet article accorde une attention particulière à la création de réseaux interculturels transitoires et aux régions stimulées par le commerce et les contacts connexes à travers la mer du Nord et l’Atlantique Nord. Silke Reeploeg is a lecturer at the University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland, UK. SCANDINAVIAN-CANADIAN STUDIES VOLUME 23 ÉTUDES SCANDINAVES AU CANADA 2016 Connected Cultures shared, diverse, but similarly sea-focused cultural landscapes exist across the coastal areas of the North Sea and the North Atlantic that informs the way in which national and regional cultural A identities are shaped and maintained (Rian). They also form the basis of ways in which coastal communities interact across the North Sea in transnational cultural regions or “sub-national regions crossing international boundaries” (Winge 48). This article investigates the connected cultures of Norway and Scotland’s coastal communities and the intercultural links that have historically crossed the North Sea and the North Atlantic, linking the coastal regions of Scandinavia with that of the British Isles and Canada. The time frame for the present article is the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which for both Norway and Scotland is a complex historical period. Norway was part of the Danish realm (Kingdom of Denmark–Norway) until 1814, and from 1814 to 1905 in a union with Sweden, whereas Scotland became part of an Anglo-Scottish kingdom from 1707 onwards. Parts of northern Scotland, such as the Scottish Northern Isles, had for long been part of a wider Nordic territory, with political transfer of the islands of Orkney and Shetland from the Norwegian to the Scottish Crown occuring in 1468 and 1469 respectively (Crawford 47). When the shared cultural heritage that connects Norway and Scotland is considered, the archipelagos of Shetland and Orkney therefore stand out as particularly evident areas of intercultural influences. Archaeological, historical, and cultural evidence suggest regional communities that are far from isolated by their geographical position, but connected via maritime links both across the North Sea and the North Atlantic. As is apparent from maps of the North Atlantic such as the Carta Marina (Magnus 1539), the islands of Orkney and Shetland continued to be of significance to Dano-Norwegian, Dutch, and German traders and fishermen throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Zickermann). However, the Shetland Islands, in particular, were almost unknown to British visitors up until the introduction of a regular steamship service from the Scottish mainland in the mid-nineteenth century (Reeploeg 2015). Exploring eighteenth-century connections as part of the dynamics of intercultural regions thus allows us to understand cultural encounters that cross the borders of Scandinavia as well as focus on less dominant areas of research, offering new avenues to investigate cultural encounters across the North Atlantic region. Within Europe, both tangible and intangible cultures have already been shown to be rich sources for investigating the trialogue between space, identity, and organization (Jönsson, Tägil, and Törnqvist). Coastal communities perceive 30 SCANDINAVIAN-CANADIAN STUDIES/ÉTUDES SCANDINAVES AU CANADA the sea not as a boundary, but as more of a bridge, a link to the world beyond, an opportunity for intercultural contact. A shared, cross-cultural vocabulary and knowledge about both the sea and the land, the offshore fishing grounds, and the coastal environment also form a critical part of the economic and cultural capital of North Atlantic coastal communities. They share a set of environments and cultures that are different from inland areas, often shaped by a combination-economy of farming and various ways of using the sea and coast (Schjelderup 35-65). This is visible in tangible objects such as harbours, boats (Christensen), and coastal buildings, but also the less tangible knowledge about the coast, such as navigation (Redondo) and fishing meds (a combination of inland and offshore orientation to locate fishing grounds, safe anchorages, and other underwater landscape features) (Klepp 13; Simpson). Shared narratives mediate and transmit this knowledge to coming generations. They connect coastal communities to each other in diverse but similarly sea-focused cultural landscapes that exist across the cultural landscape of the North Sea (Løseth and Sæther; Andersen, Greenhill, and Grude). These narratives, in turn, inform the way in which regional cultural identities are formed and maintained (Paasi; Rian). They also form the basis of ways in which coastal communities maintain communal memories (Aronsson). Thus “sub-national regions crossing international boundaries” are created, maintained, and transformed over time (Winge 48). Entangled Histories Cultural identity often hinges upon “belonging” to one or the other homogenous nation-state, ethnic group, or language area. Modern historical narratives have often aligned cultural and territorial borders with those of nation-states, with historians often speaking of the “birth of…” nations, regions, or cultures as if, before that point, no common or defined cultural identities existed. The term “multicultural” emphasizes cultural difference, often linking it to modern nation-state or ethnic borders. Equally, the terms “cross-cultural” or the experience of “acculturation” (the modification of the culture of a group or of a single individual as a result of contact with a different culture) depend on the way in which these unique and different cultures come into contact with each other’s distinct systems of norms, beliefs, practices, and values. This separatist stance has been questioned by historians and cultural theorists keen to point to transnational political spaces, questioning nationalist perspectives that uncritically accept historically-constituted formations (Werner and Zimmermann). Alternative concepts such as entangled histories or histoire croisée, for example, reach beyond the notion of cultural influence as a simple (one-way) reception of culture. Instead, it aims to add to cultural transfer studies in that connections and relations are NORDIC BORDER CROSSINGS 31 emphasized and the back-and-forth negotiations in influences are considered (Marjanen 244). Intercultural links have occurred throughout history, and it is possible to discern trends and distinct periods that gave rise to new coherences and connections, often over large areas. Intercultural relationships differ from political or economic links in that they often ignore geo-political borders, treating them as permeable boundaries through which cultural information may continue to flow (Pearson-Evans). Research into what happens when intercultural links are established has generally focused on wider processes and coherences such as Colonialism or Europeanization (Mehler and Gardiner; Körber and Volquardsen; Armitage and Braddick). However, some studies of cultural transfer have also commented that some coherences can remain restricted to local areas, without affecting larger areas (Schmale). These are usually referred to as regional “clusters of coherences,” which are created by historical and commercial links such as the Viking Age, the Hanseatic period, or the Scottish Trade (Skottehandelen) between Scotland and Norway during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Brink and Price; Mehler and Gardiner; Lillehammer). This means that although political and geographical borders always impose some sort of structural constraint, this does not necessarily change the nature or continuity of the relationship. So, for example, migration itself occurs due to both economic and personal reasons and often leads to the emergence of “geographically diffuse socio-cultural fields” (Olwig 787). Coastal culture is an example of such a geographically diffuse socio-cultural field in that it connects cultures